A Work in Progress

Short Story Sunday: Catching Up

I've spent the last week trying to catch up with my New Yorker short story reading.  How easy it is to fall behind when those magazines arrive in the mailbox every week.  With my subscription I get access to the digital issue as well, which works out nicely as I can read them at the gym using my tablet.  Prop it against the machine and hands free I can exercise and read at the same time.  One better, often the digital edition has accompanying audio.  More often than not the author reads her or his work, so I get to also plug in my headphones, block out all the background noise and get lost in a good story.  There really is nothing like having a story read aloud. So, a little rundown of some very good and very memorable stories I have read and listened to lately.

Mark Haddon reads his story "The Weir" in the November 16 issue.  What a crazy good story.  You know how sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.  We'll how about a roundabout of that--truth is stranger than fiction, but sometimes things like what happens in Haddon's story do happen in real life and make for good stories, too.  A man is out walking his dogs.  He's reflecting on his wife, with whom he is now estranged and his son who has been gone for three years without even a peep of contact.  Maria's left and he's happy he's been coping so well all things considered.  But of course there are rough patches, like today.  And then he sees a woman crossing a small bridge and she prepares to jump in.  He calls out to her to try and stop her, but backpack on, she goes over the side.  It happens in an instant and he knows better, the water rushing past, but when he sees her bob up he dives in after.  Through luck or tenacity he manages to fish her out, barely conscious.  She's a mess--physically and emotionally and psychologically, but then in his own way, so is he--and she begs him not to take her to the hospital.  And so begins a most curious friendship.  It's funny how two of the most unlikely people can become friends under the strangest of circumstances.  You can read the Q&A with Haddon here.

Julianne Pachico's story "Honey Bunny" in the November 9 issue is about a world I will never know, and that's okay.  The story opens in a nightclub with a young woman 'connecting' with a guy and she offers him some 'goodies', which turn out to be drugs.  You watch this young woman as she navigates a life that seems very much on the edge.  She's a student studying fashion and on the surface you think she must just be a partier who just lives too much on the edge and isn't managing things very well.  You only get her perspective, and while she's sort of abhorrent, I couldn't help but feel sorry for her and the mess she's in.  Through her memories of growing up in Columbia you see what a wealthy young woman she is and had a life of entitlement in her country and then had to leave it very quickly.  You get a glimpse of a young woman, maybe even a child who was manipulated by her family to do things she shouldn't have but probably didn't know any better.  Whatever opportunities she might have in a new country are overshadowed by her addictions and you wonder what will become of her.  Pachico's Q&A is here.

Another story with ties to South America in the November 2 issue is Ariel Dorfman's "The Gospel According to Garcia".  Garcia is the subject of this story, but we never meet him directly.  It's not even clear what happened to him.  It's not even known exactly where or when the story takes place and whether Garcia left of his own accord or was removed.  And if so, why.  His ideas and teachings take on a very different hue then, filtered through the things the students think about him.  He was a teacher who is now gone and his class has been taken over by a substitute.  I love stories like this.  You feel you are looking at someone but not exactly at them.  More like seeing their reflection in a mirror, or in this case his reflection in the response of his students.  In the Q&A Dorfman calls Garcia a "spiritual guide" to his students.  It's not really the substitute teacher telling the story, nor really one student, rather a 'collective voice'.  The students are matching the two teachers, knowing what Garcia was teaching them and understanding some of the lessons, but . . .  He's given them a framework to live by without really reinforcing the structure.  I think this is a story with hidden meaning somewhere between the lines.

A very remarkable story by Lesley Nneka Arimah, which left me shaking my head a little with chills running up and down my spine for a number of reasons.  "Who Will Greet You at Home" sort of freaked me out at first yet I read it with relish anyway.  It felt almost folksy to me, though Arimah (who was born in Nigeria but now lives in Minnesota) said in her Q&A that this is a myth of her own invention.  Unlike the other stories, this one was not read by the author, which makes me wonder what her narration would have been like.  In this story young women create their own babies--they begin as dolls made out of different materials and then eventually take on life form based on what their 'mothers' fashioned them out of.  The materials might make a child one of sadness like, Ogechi, but she wants a child of strength.  She works in a salon, whose owner takes payment in the form of joy or happiness taken from the giver.  Ogechi's other baby didn't survive and so she creates one out of the discarded strands of hair that she sweeps from the floor.  This is not something that should be done, and Ogechi knows of risks, but she does it anyway.  The child does grow and become strong, but frighteningly so.  I would say this story verges on the macabre, but there is something more to it, a message that is actually quite subtly done behind that horror of the story. 

All the stories I read/listened to this week were pretty amazing and quite memorable each in its own way, but if you only have half an hour and could just choose one to read (you can click on any of the links to read them online), let me nudge you to read Lesley Nneka Arimah's story, which I thought was really outstanding.  A little freaky but it packs quite a wallop.   Unfortunately she has nothing else published at the moment but is working on a collection of stories and a novel.  I'll be watching for more of her work.

I didn't get to the current issue's story, which is by Ann Beattie, but I will be listening to it this week and hopefully stay on track for the rest of the year.  I haven't been writing about all the stories I've been reading and am not sure I will get around to filling in the gaps with the New Yorker stories, but they remain one of my best weekly reads and I will certainly continue reading on into next year.

Weekend Reading . . . (in pictures)

Hooray, the weekend is here and it couldn't have come too soon!  It is forecast to be a wet and possibly stormy weekend so I might spend more time indoors than usual, though I do still hope to take a nice long Saturday morning walk and I have one last theater performance to attend on Sunday afternoon.  I am hoping otherwise to fill it with as much bookishness as possible (plus I have a half day off on Monday afternoon and the following weekend is a holiday weekend to look forward to as well).

My weekend lineup will hopefully include some of the following.  I am down to about sixty pages or so of this book.  It has been a really good read--unexpectedly twisty and turny!

I was so excited to hear that the May issue of World Literature Today is dedicated to New Israeli Writing (right up my alley, yes?), that I made a special trip to the bookstore today expecting to snag an issue for weekend reading, but they haven't received their copies (and the clerk told me they hadn't had any issue in ages . . . hmm).  Disappointed me!  But I still brought home a couple of other literary magazines (used to subscribe to Tin House and am contemplating subscribing again since I am devoted to short story reading these days) and my New Yorker is here just waiting to be opened.  (Oh, and I ordered a copy of WLT, so I hope it comes quickly--something good to look forward to in the mail this coming week.  For next weekend's reading?). 

Speaking of short stories I need to choose a new collection or anthology for my Sunday short story reading and have (I think . . . ) it narrowed down to these two.  Both have short first stories so maybe I will read each and see where to go from there.  Check back Sunday night to hear more.

Ooh, look which books I have been reading at the gym for the past week.  Neither are my usual 'gym reading' fare--only because I normally need something a little mindless or easy to stay focused.  But students have begun their summer break and so it is much quieter than normal.  Both books are really good, really engrossing and I have a hard time setting one down and picking up the other (I use two different machines for half an hour--so perfect amount of time to read a chapter or so of each).

And then there are my other mysteries and novels of suspense to get on with (for my summer of murder and mayhem reading).  Each good in their own way, each very different and a nice sampling of styles and (sub) genres. 

And while it is on the bottom of the 'to do' list of weekend activities, I was thinking how nice it would be to work on my stitching this weekend.  Although I have brought my Prairie Fairy to work with me all week, I have not added a single stitch to her. I was thinking a little variety might also be good and maybe I could get moving on my Birds of a Feather "Autumn" design that I shared with you a . very . long . time . ago!

What is keeping you busy this weekend?  Any reading?  A good book?  Crafting? Relaxing?  Something good, I hope!

A Monday Mishmash, or Reading Notes

Just a miscellanea of items today.

I'm moving right along in Charles Palliser's The Quincunx.  After not opening the book at all last week I spent some quality (though limited quality) time with it over the weekend.  I am actually thinking that maybe I should do a bit push this week and spend the bulk of my reading time with it.  It's showing serious wear and tear as you can see, and I feel like I am, too.  I want to try and finish it before I go on vacation in October, so that gives me just about three weeks to read the remaining 302 pages.  Yes, only 302 pages left to go!  That's about the length of an average book which under normal circumstances I could read in a week, right?  The thing with The Quincunx, though, the print fills the pages and is teeny tiny, so it tends to feel like it takes twice the average time to read even one page. 

Boy, talk about Victorian melodrama.  Every awful thing that can happen to the main character continues to happen.  Nothing surprises me anymore.

Along with The Quincunx, though, I will also be spending time with my current RIP read, Wilkie Collins's The Haunted Hotel (another excellent Wilkie Collins story) and I've just started reading Alexander Baron's There's No Home, which I think I am going to like very much.  It is set in Sicily during WWII.  But this is it, I think.  I tend to drag a stack of books around with me (a bad habit I have gotten into), and this week--these three get my attention!

Friday after work I had to do an errand which was close by the bookstore, and as I hadn't been to a proper books and mortar bookstore for ages, I had (of course) to stop by.  I must say I was very restrained in my purchases.  I bought a few magazines (the top two are stitchery magazines and I have found a number of projects I would love to work on . . . ).

And I found this!  I couldn't possibly pass it up.  Doesn't it look great?  Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense edited by Sarah Weinman.  This is a collection of fourteen short stories from the 1940s to mid-1970s written by Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, and Margaret Millar to name just a few.  I can't wait to start reading and have added it as a possible vacation book to my already too long list!

Now hold on a moment.  Restraint.  Really?  Is that what I said just a minute ago?  Must reassess things.  This is the damage I did yesterday when I stopped by my favorite used bookstore.  Can you see why it is my favorite?  I went in search of a couple of books (which I didn't find), but in a matter of about ten minutes these are the books I found.  I could have bought more, so maybe I did show restraint?  They have two tables in the front of the store with newest arrivals and there was an especially good selection.  I was tempted by a huge stack of NYRBs, I had to make myself put them back.  And what I couldn't make myself put back:

Five novels by Cornell Woolrich, which I think are wonderful finds as they are out of print and in nearly pristine condition--excellent finds!  My haul includes Night has a Thousand Eyes, Deadline at Dawn, The Black Path of Fear, The Black Angel and The Black Curtain.  Noir joy!

Ever since I saw an exihibit last summer when I was in San Francisco of Lee Miller's work, I have wanted to read about her.  How serendipitous then to find a biography by Carolyn Burke just before I am ready to go back to SF.  Another one I can't wait to read.

Words of Mercury: Patrick Leigh Fermor edited by Artemis Cooper is a collection of excerpts of PLF's writing.  A splurge but I had to have it.

One NYRB.  That's all I walked away with, can you believe it?  Maybe I will have to go back this weekend and do another sweep?  Until then I have Elizabeth David's A Book of Mediterranean Food, which is a collection of British postwar writings that looks excellent. 

And a book I have long wanted to read and now I have my own copy bought for a mere pittance, The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal. 

If I wasn't going to devote my reading to just a few books this week I would most certainly dip into one or more of these (and who knows, I may cave in anyway).  It's okay to dip into books, right?  And then begin reading properly later?

**********

This week my posts may be intermittent as I need to finish a project that has been too long neglected.  I will be back by the end of the week, but don't be surprised if it goes a little quiet here for the next few days. 

If I could grow free time I think I would start a really big garden!  Ah, well.  Never a boring moment. 

Happy reading in the interim everyone!

Vanity Fair's Watched Potboilers

There's a really good article in the July issue of Vanity Fair magazine that is well worth reading if you can get your hands on a copy, "Vassar Unzipped" abbout author Mary McCarthy and her novel The Group.  I read The Group more than ten years ago--maybe even longer than ten year.  It's been so long that all I can recall now is that I read it, with only a vague impression of the story still lingering, which is about eight Vassar graduates from the class of 1933 following their lives until 1940.  I've long wanted to reread the book and this might just be the gentle nudge that does it.  I have a feeling, too, that it's a book that I will not only appreciate more the second time around but most likely actually understand better with a good ten years (or more) behind me. 

It's interesting to read about the book, which was both declared an instant classic yet also somewhat maligned.  It made Mary McCarthy, who had already published short stories and had several novels under her belt a rich woman.  It was a novel idea--a writer actually making money off her work.  There's a line that she crossed from being simply an intectual who had written stories and novels to being a popular author.  Not much has changed, you know, popular/bestseller and intellectual are not often considered equivalents.  Popular usually means poorly written or executed.  She was paid $100,000 for the paperback rights and movie rights were bought for the princely sum of $165,500.

"The Group made Mary McCarthy a very rich intellectual, one of America's first highbrows to receive gargantuan sums, thus changing the financial expectations of serious writers and the scale on which their work could be judged."

The Group was the sort of book that young women (and probably not so young women, too) read for the racy scenes.  It was, of course, wildly popular.  As much as it was talked about and praised, there was also a backlash that came with its popularity.  Some characters might have been composites of a number of real women, but others could be picked out from McCarthy's own graduating class.  Needless to say they were none too pleased about that. 

It seems generally accepted that as novels go it works better as social history than literary fiction.  Well received from some corners it might have been, but other reviews were quite scathing.

"It was honesty on another level that made the book controversial.  McCarthy was matter-of-fact and often slapstick about subjects that everyone else deemed sacred-sex, motherhood, one's relationship with one's shrink.  And she was completely unfazed by physiology."

It was published in 1963 along with Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, and Adrienne Rich's collection of poetry Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law, riding the "second-wave of feminism", though I don't know that the feminist slant was what McCarthy was really going for with the novel.  The book was not meant to be a satire or a joke but a "'true history of the times . . . '."

Vanity Fair also gives a list of "Watched Potboilers".  Tongue-in-cheek they give the genre the name "Young Women on Life's Threshold" naming Samuel Richardson's (1748) Clarissa one of the oldest.  Their list includes:

Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk (1955)
The Valley of the Dolls by Jaqueline Susann (1966)
A Summer Place by Sloan Wilson (1958)
The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe (1958)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar by Judith Rossner (1975)
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (1973)

Wouldn't it be fun to read through the list?  It has "reading project" written all over it.  I think I might roll it around in my mind for later.  That's a young Candice Bergan in the photo above, by the way, in the movie adaptation.  The author has more to say about the novel and McCarthy--do check it out.

Edith Wharton Serendipity

Today when I was out doing errands I stopped to check out the newsstand at the supermarket and came across the September issue of Vogue.  A quick flip through the pages and I discovered this . . .

An article on Edith Wharton.  Into the cart it went.  Actually I could easily have stood and read the few pages in the store, but the photography is so lush and beautiful, I had to have the whole magazine.

I love the photograpohic recreation (by none other than the talented Annie Leibovitz).  That's Henry James on the left (novelist Jeffrey Eugenides), Edith in her motorcar (model Natalia Vodianova), Cook, Edith's faithful driver (actor Elijah Wood) and Morton Fullerton far right (actor Jack Huston).

More Edith Wharton serendipity it would seem.  This makes me feel like the gods are telling me something.  I had better go to my bookshelves and pull off one of her novels to read!

Great Expectations, or I {heart} Mail

I'm supposed to be working on a post about a book I recently read (and enjoyed), but the book has long been returned to the library and now I'm feeling uninspired.  I'm a very talented procrastinator (have been honing my abilities for years now), so maybe instead I'll waste a little time looking at magazines. 

I should have titled my post "we* {heart} mail, as you can see we're all over these recent arrivals in my mailbox.  I am totally addicted to getting mail.  Are you, too?  All of a sudden this past spring I decided I wanted to start subscribing to a few good publications.  Widen my horizons, become informed and all that.  What possessed me (really great deals actually) to subscribe to so many (didn't happen all at once but has been building as I add another and yet another to my pile), but here they are.  As if I had unlimited reading time already for books, now I have a stack of periodicals to keep me busy, too.

In case you're curious what exactly was under the cats . . . This is my extracurricular reading material.   A little bookishness, a little current events, some art/history and definitely a little gossip.  So are you strictly books only or do you indulge in glossy magazines, too?  And can I be nosey and ask what you like to read (since maybe it's something I should read also)?

By the way, I'm not one to watch much TV (you can guess what I spend my free time doing, right?), but I've just discovered The Big Bang Theory, which is absolutely hilarious.  A coworker loaned me the DVDs of season one, which I have pretty much inhaled.  If you've not watched this show, and you need a good laugh, this is it.  I've been driven to tears of mirth watching the episodes.  Laughter is a good thing and I need more of it, so I think I can safely say I am going to be addicted to watching the show from now on, though I have a lot of catching up to do.

And now I suppose I will have to get back to writing my proper book post.  I suppose I've procrastinated long enough.  Or maybe I'll go read my magazines and write Sunday's post later . . .

*Chispa and Dulce aren't shy.  They are always happy for any attention, but the flash bothers their eyes.  If sprawling on top of books and magazines makes them at all bookish, they are two very literary cats.